Frontier Wars: Violence and Space in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Frontier Wars: Violence and Space (Byrne 2012). The literature also reveals that in Belfast, Northern Ireland. the physical barriers between communities also belie division based on class and Jack Boulton relative wealth as well as politics. There is also an indication that the perception of “The course of instruction ethnic fighting and division is changing as treated subsequent historical new generations take on the burden of conflict as the rift between a conflict. geographically inspired cultural-economic separatism The first section of the paper will and outside forces such as look at the interface zones and peacelines as Christianity, British physical barricades to violence, using work colonialism, and capitalism. by Feldman (1991), Anderson and These interlopers were Shuttleworth (2003) and Byrne (2012). depicted as undoing what Following this is a look at how perceptions geography had created. This of prior conflict and ethnic division have ongoing confrontation was manifested themselves in the present day. traced to sophisticated There is a specific focus in this section on political concepts, but its masculine identity, and reference is made to polarised patterning repeated work by Roche (2012) and Lysaght and in other forms the geographic Basten (2003), both of whom suggest that splintering of the Ice Age historical violence has found new forms of event.” (Feldman 1991:17) expression in the lives of men who were not involved in the conflicts of the past Belfast, Northern Ireland, remains one generation. The remainder of the paper shifts of the most segregated cities in the world slightly in tone in an effort to describe how (Murtagh 2008). Whilst violence may have gentrification has altered the nature of been sidelined by politicians in the hope that conflict, using work by Watson (2009) and it might be forgotten, in the borderlands of Carter (2003). the city it is still very much a common occurrence. The aim of this paper will be to Segregated Space in Belfast explore how violence is connected to space, The first ‘peacelines’ in Belfast were with a particular focus on Belfast. Of course, constructed in 1969 amid growing inter- many other cities are also divided – for ethnic conflict between Catholic and example Jerusalem (Israel and Palestine) and Protestant districts in the city in a period Nicosia (Cyprus). However Belfast is an known – perhaps euphemistically – as “The interesting case because its example is often Troubles”. As Doherty and Poole (1997) used as a template for successful protection point out, “The Troubles” were not the against sectarian violence, most notably US- beginning of ethnic conflict in Ireland, but controlled Baghdad after the invasion of Iraq “the most recent outpourings from an intermittently active vent of violence that 101 was added to the already turbulent landscape currently exist – the Northern Ireland Office of Irish political conflict by the arrival of states 53, UK Prime Minister David immigrant British settlers in the sixteenth Cameron stated 48 in 2011, and in 2012 and seventeenth centuries” (1997:1). independent research concluded that there Doherty and Poole continue by stating that were 99 (Byrne 2012). Regardless of how one of the legacies of the invasion is that in many lines currently exist, Shawn contemporary times, Irish society is still Pogatchnik wrote in a 2008 USA Today divided along the lines of ‘settler-native’ article that the number of peacewalls has (1997:1), with the minority Catholic risen rather than decreased since the end of population being the ‘natives’ and the the conflict. Byrne (2012) posits that this is English/Scottish Protestants being the despite previous attempts by government to ‘settlers’. Whilst most Catholics favour a reduce the physical embodiments of security united Ireland, the majority of Protestants policy, including the removal of wish to remain in union with the United checkpoints, army patrols, and the phasing Kingdom (Doherty and Poole 1997). out of the “ring of steel,” which was designed to protect Belfast city centre from Feldman (1991) believes that the rise potential terrorist attack (2012:12-13). in sectarian violence in Belfast in the late Murtagh (2008) suggests that in part this is 1960s resulted in huge relocations of because of the increasing divide between the working-class populations, with the main rich and the poor: “a twin speed city has sites of movement being “ethnically mixed emerged in the last decade,” he writes, “in working class sectors of the city and those which those with education and skills are small ethnically homogeneous districts that doing well in key growth sectors whilst bordered on the larger sectarian enclaves of those without resources are increasingly the opposing ethnic group” (1991:23). corralled in ‘sink’ estates, stratified by Movement was either a result of the fear of poverty, segregation and fear” (2008:4). The impending violence, the result of actual peacewalls remain contested; a 2007 survey violence or threats, or the residual effect of of residents near the walls found that the overcrowding that occurred as people moved boundaries served to promote an air of to ‘safer ground’. In the latter situation, safety and protection. However the same people of differing ethnicity would often be survey also found that the majority of forced from their homes to make way for participants thought that the walls should inbound populaces (Feldman 1991). come down if circumstance favoured it, with Built by the British army, the only 17% of respondents wishing that the peacewalls were originally meant as a short walls remained standing indefinitely term measure, however many still remain (Macaulay 2008). despite an apparent end (at least on paper) to the conflict with the signing of the Good Peacelines and Violence Friday Agreement in 1998. Strangely there In a seminal and classic ethnography is no consensus on how many peacewalls of violence in Northern Ireland written 102 before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, (2011:8). Feldman draws on Lacan (1977) Feldman (1991) suggests that the interface when he posits that the effect of the peace zones themselves (at that time, at least) were walls was to reorganise space into a “mirror “spatial construct[s] pre-eminently linked to relation” (1991:35) whereby for each group, the performance of violence” (1991:28). the opposite side of the barricade became Feldman states that riots that occurred at seen as ‘outside’, and one’s own side interface zones (before the erection of became a sanctuary (Feldman 1991). This formal barriers) were a customary way for organisation melds together several cultural setting boundaries, citing ceremonial strands so that they become marches as an equivalent gesture for the indistinguishable and inseparable: demarcating of space (1991). In 1968, peace walls were erected along some of the most “… the topographic, the notorious sites of sectarian violence, tactical, and the ideological effectively separating the two ethnic groups. were fused into a mobilising For Feldman though, the erection of these spectacle which channelled peace walls did little to halt violence, and if the perception and anything they possibly exacerbated the performance of violent issue. He states “the politically charged exchanges. Political interface ceased to be an expression of representation and spatial community identity and began to regulate order constituted a single community experience. Communities interactive and mutually became hostages to their barricades and their sustaining social structure for ossified boundaries, if not actively violated the reproduction of violence. by their spaces of inclusion” (1991:31). The fusion of the historical Whereas the interface zones had and the spatial by new levels been primarily a cognitive boundary based of symbolic investment on knowledge of local geography, the peace generated the political walls were a formal separation imposed by autonomy of space… within the state. The interface zones were, in this spatial metaphysic, essence, contested space and although political interest, utilitarian temporary boundaries were often erected by ideologies, and strategies of local residents these were easily broken political manipulation could down. The building of permanent, not be artificially separated unbreakable walls was a state effort (either from their symbolisation in purposely or not) to define and bureaucratise topological coordinates.” violent space though ‘making it safe’. As (Feldman 1991:36) Hoffman suggests, “states undertake projects of distinguishing the legal from the illegal, Feldman continues his discussion of the the legitimate from the illegitimate, the licit peacewalls by describing the from the illicit. States territorialise” ‘sanctuary/interface/adversary’ system which he believes should be understood as both a 103 top-down and bottom-up organisational and renewed paramilitary threat, classificatory system. That is, that it was rather than a real and lasting both the way the system was experienced peace.” (Sluka 2009:282) and the way it was classified by the state (1991). By keeping violent interaction at the Although Queen Elizabeth II visited Dublin peacewalls, the sanctuary became in 2011 as a gesture of goodwill between the “constituted by a space that was reserved for United Kingdom and Ireland, Sluka’s residence and kinship” (1991:36). Therefore analysis was proved correct by newspaper the sanctuary/interface system was not reports, including one by Adam Gabbatt and simply a means

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